Pixies and Pizzicato
by Tj Barci
Summary: Lukas, a senior at VI School, is a talented violinst whose passionate playing evokes in audiences something close to mania. Juilliard beckons, but as he prepares for one of the most backbreaking auditions in front of the world's keenest eyes, the walls that he built around himself begin to crumble; and Lukas can't help but wonder what, if anything, merits the ultimate sacrifice.


**A slightly better description of the genre: **_General fiction with fantasy elements and sprinklings of romance. AKA, a lot of the fanfiction on this site._

(**AN:** major work in progress this is, so bear with me)

"Go faster!" she breathed, leaning forward.

"You're tipping it. I can't play if you tip it," Lukas said, halting mid-stroke.

"Oh, sorry." Elisabeta adjusted the stand, and then popped back up, smiling sheepishly. He eyed her, but said nothing. A few minutes later she decreed, "Harder, please. I like it when it's rough."

"If I drag the bow any harder it won't be style anymore; it will just sound like I'm rubbing a chainsaw against a skateboard rail. Plus, I can barely hear myself think let alone play over your shouting. And I hope you realise what you're saying sounds... have you been hitting the gay porn again?"

The room had gained an awkward tension, like it too begged for more, like it too was under a powerful trance.

Elisabeta blinked, and slowly an unabashed grin spread across her cheeks. "No, but it's cute of you to think I would have fallen so easily. Your concern, I mean."

"Old habits die hard."

"Perhaps," said she, eyes alight, "but I'm a good girl. Listen, could you play just a little more? I really liked that one song... 'Wouldn't It Be Nice'?"

Lukas didn't want to for fear of making her sick, but... he wanted to play and she wanted to listen. So after a minute of screwing around, he re-taught himself how to play it and they were off, once again resuming their roles of puppeteer and puppet.

_But which one of us is really the puppet here?_

Everything was going fine until he hit a high note, barely thirty seconds into it, and Elisabeta began to waver, her delicate frame acting as though it was a tall building in a wind storm. Her eyes went a-rolling back in her head, and down she went. Lukas wasn't quick enough to break her fall, and he was left to stare at her lying on the floor like a ragdoll with a violin banged up from trying to move past the stand faster than he was able.

_I should've stopped. I should have said no. _He knew that as much as he had wanted, he couldn't have avoided it. Even his thoughts had become obligatory.

Lukas picked her up and laid her in one of those black chairs: the kind that look soft, but after an hour of practising become a bicycle seat. It had turned into somewhat of a routine, and handling unconscious people no longer bothered him.

Elegant waves of hair splayed out behind her like hot caramel, and her sleeping face was more than pretty. Any other boy would have caressed her gentle cheek bones, even if it was just a test of courage; but Lukas couldn't do it. It unnerved him to think that he made her pass out. He knew that he could do nothing else to harm her, but he dared not do it.

It took at least thirty minutes for her to wake, and by then Lukas was terribly bored, choosing to wear down the charge on his fancy Smartphone by playing mindless games. He couldn't just leave her there.

"What happened? Why did you stop playing?"

He sighed. "One of my strings broke." Such an over-used excuse.

"Oh. So you... can't play anymore?" He shook his head, glad she bought it and that he'd put it away. She was too curious. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologising?" he drawled, picking up his case. "It was my fault for not replacing them when I should've. You should go back to your dorm now so you can keep up those fantastic grades of yours."

Lukas had his hand on the door, ready to push the metal bar in, but Elisabeta hadn't moved. She was staring at him thoughtfully.

"What? You don't want to impress your parents?"

She grinned and stood up, smoothing her long skirt down. "No, that's not it. It's just that I'm apologising because you can't make people happy if your means of doing it isn't functioning."

As he watched her gather her book-bag, a pang of regret threatened to wrench out long withheld tears. As strong a person she was, she was just like the others. But the sentiment was rather sweet.

He held open the door for her and they walked down the long hall that made up the music wing. The choir was singing 'Piano Man' furiously, voices lovely but ever the more unbalanced the higher they soared. He supposed the drama kids wanted to beat them in the loud contest, because they were nearly screaming out their lines. Why was it that art was always a competition?

"Lukas, thank you," Elisabeta said as they entered the courtyard.

"Sure."

"Now, are we going to choose the kiss or the fist bump?"

~dumdumdumDUMDUMdaDUM~

"How many times have you broken your leg, Mathias?"

"Four, I think."

"Cheekiness won't get you anywhere. Your leg is taking a lot of abuse," the coach said, crouching to get eyelevel with the spiky-haired teen.

"I ain't proud of it, but I wouldn't trade the times I slid in the mud for prissy, worthless dance lessons that 'keep me fit'." He grinned slyly, knowing full well that that was exactly what Coach Michaels was doing with his wife on Thursday evenings.

"You realise that you won't be able to play for a long, long time," Coach continued, nonplussed and unfazed by Mathias' attempt at diversion.

Mathias nodded sadly, snapping the cross open and shut. It was like a bottle cap: addicting for only a few minutes, but then when you rediscovered it, addicting again. "You still have to do something on the days you would normally have practice or games if you want it to count for credit or whatever the school calls it these days."

"What? That's not fair! I'm injured!"

"I'm just the messenger, kid." He shrugged and stood up slowly, a few bones popping. "There's lotsa stuff you can do that doesn't require a lot of movement."

"Fine. Lousy rules," mumbled the boy, hobbling now toward the door.

As he hopped out into the courtyard, he saw Elisabeta Hedérváry. Girl was all curves, from head to toe. Lovely kind of girl she was, always studying, but never a prude and never too smart.

Then he saw the scrawny runt giving her a fist bump, his watery bleu eyes trained on her face. Little shit. Mathias thought he looked a little familiar, but with all the faces he saw everyday, it was impossible to place a name. Whatever; it made it even easier to ruin the moment.

"Hey, Liz! How's it goin'?"

"Hi, Mathias! I'm just parting ways with my friend here. I'll be there in just a sec, okay?"

The short kid glared at him as he walked away, swinging whatever case he had in his hand violently as he did so. "Bye, _Lizzy_! Have a nice evening, and remember what I told you about you-know-what!"

"Will do, dear!" Then, after the kid had left: "Hey, is something going on between you?" It took a second for the realisation to dawn on him, but when it did, he almost dropped his crutches.

"No, Liz. I've told you three times before that I'm not gay, so let it go!"

~aheeaheeoo~

It was a quiet life at home, but Lukas enjoyed it. He had to, or else he'd go nuts from the loneliness. The hum of the fridge, the TV, and the kick of the heater turning on were his only friends for weeks at a time.

Plus that stupid Pomeranian.

He set the sleek black case down in his room and delved into the fridge, suddenly and ravenously hungry. There wasn't much there but some crusty salsa and weird foreign food. He settled for the salsa, grabbing chips he suspected were long expired, having been forgotten behind the microwave oven.

On the counter, scattered, were papers stating rather grandly that he'd been accepted into Julliard. His curiosity had gotten the better of him, of course, and he devoured half of them just he had the leftover chips.

_I'm supposed to be impressed. I'm supposed to be excited and proud. Why can't I be? What's wrong with me? _ He eventually convinced himself to at least think that it was his doing that made this possible, not anybody else's. He played the instrument, he took the lessons, he dictated and transposed all by himself. Yes, it was all his doing. _He _was the special one. And that only made it worse.

In truth, Lukas wanted to take that instrument and hold it by the scroll, taking care to fling it just so backwards into the wall, picking up what was left and smashing it into wood-chips for the fire with his own two hands. _The things I think of sometimes, _he would think, chiding himself.

But he could envision the sound it would make as it hit the brick, the bridge slipping and the strings unwinding in one glorious moment that he would later describe to his children and grandchildren and to anyone who would listen as the day he broke free of his own shackles. He almost grabbed it that very moment, burning with a sort of manic desire, but then realised what would happen when his mother came home.

~badada~

"By the way you're looking at me, I assume something is wrong."

"I understand you're to go to Julliard in the fall, and you can't do that if you don't have certain grades..." The counselor slid a copy of his report toward him, but Lukas continued to stare at the snow globe on his desk. _So, he's been to Canada... eh? _

"My grades are up to standard."

"Well, yes, all of them are, except for P.E and Math, to start."

"That's news to me. So's the fact that a scholarship virtually guarantees my entry. It is not my grades that work any sort of magic."

Sighing, Mr. Whitmore began in the lecture drawl, "Let me remind you where we are. This is your senior meeting, Lukas. We set goals for you to reach. We do not set low standards with which you will barely scrape by."

The hands on the matroshka clock went on ticking, and Lukas made a game of tracking when the hand that marked the seconds would get to the forty-five.

"I see in you, as I know many others do, a greatness that is unsurpassable by even the brightest at VI."

There it goes, there it is; five, four, three... chk! And again.

"I'm sure you don't need reminding, but you need one credit of P.E. to graduate from this school. As this is your second and last and it is so close to the end of the year, I will make you an offer."

"What's that, huh?"

This should be good.

"If you reach a D in P.E. by April 21st, I will personally grant you passing status in all your failing classes."

Lukas looked up from the swirling wood of the man's desk to meet eyes and wrinkles. The smile he saw in the mix sent an unexpected shock of warmth through him, and he couldn't help but build a shadow of one on his face, too. "I suppose I can try that out."

"I hope you do."

At the end of the day, he was booking it to his car, trying not to get snagged by Mr. Whitmore.

And he didn't. No, he got snagged by one of the people he least expected to be sitting on the hood of his car; the one person that he wished would accidently choke on his own incense fumes.

Arthur Kirkland.

"What the hell are you doing here? The weight of your ego is denting my hood," he said, gesturing for him to shoo with his middle finger.

"Even when you're tired from all those advanced classes you're still bitter." He grinned. "Come on, it's time to go clubbing."

"What for? I'm not helping you put up advertisements for the student council."

"Oh, not that. The tutoring club. Mr. Whitmore told me you'd be joining for help with... _P.E._" He snickered. Lukas unlocked his car and slipped inside, glaring at his peer. "Don't try to get out of this, now. I know you don't like to deal with conflict, but I'm not moving off this pretty silver hood until you come with me."

"Who says I don't like to deal with conflict?" Lukas said harshly, though he was wondering if Arthur was right. "And it doesn't matter if you don't move. I'll just back out fast, brake, and then let you roll off. Maybe run you over if I'm lucky."

Arthur clicked his tongue. "Don't forget who your superior here is. You're going to join that little group of misfits, even if I have to turn you into a tea-cup poodle, put you underneath my arm, and parade you around." He tapped the hood and began to lace it with a design using a glowing index finger. "Or, you know, I could just put a curse on your car. Which one?"

~dadadaDUM~

The club room was on the bottom floor, in a corner of the school to which Lukas had never ventured. It reeked of disuse, and somehow was just fitting for that kind of club.

"I've seen worse," Arthur sighed, seemingly reading his mind. He raised his voice to get the attention of the other students, of which there were surprisingly many.

"Hey there! I'm glad that we have a new member. We haven't gotten many lately," a boy with scruffy brown hair chirped, shaking Lukas's hand wildly. He had a lilting accent, and Lukas's first thought was that he was one of those kids with a scholarship, but he had nice shoes and he seemed to glow with wealth... if that was possible.

There was no way he could just ruin the mood the boy had created, so he replied quietly, "It's nice to meet you. The name's Lukas."

"Mine's Antonio! Hey guys, this here is Lukas! You be nice to him! Lukas, if anyone ever gives you a hard time, let Boss take care of 'em for you." He nodded, and found himself being introduced to everyone in the room. One of which was a very disagreeable and spiky-haired Mathias Jensen who couldn't stop messing around with a peculiar cross barrette.

"Hey, he doesn't have a partner," a blonde-haired runt of a boy named Feliks said as Lukas sat down, making a square with his fingers and roving his gaze about the room. "Alright, I'm gonna pick... Mathias! You guys are totally matches for each other! Right, Torys?" He focused the little square on them and made clicking noises, smiling giddily.

Torys sank in his chair, his notebook going with him.

"I'm not... My grade point average will have massive dips thanks to loss of brain cells." _This is going to be so easy._

"Aw, it won't be so bad."

"You're gonna have to teach me how to be Mr. Athletic. How're you gonna do that with a broken leg?"

"I'll find a way, trust me. No limp leg's gonna keep me from havin' a good time." He grinned, and Lukas' heart sank. _Arthur is going to die, _he mused, aiming his frustration at another, perhaps more attainable target.

"So, let's set a schedule then. I have a concert in two weeks, on a Wednesday. So that day's a no. Other than that, nearly every day after school and weekend I'm free." Their gazes met, turning the air between them into ice. Mathias, with his gently sloping nose and angular face, was more attractive than he first realized. Having before refused to look at him with a critical eye, he never noticed the way his features, perfect or imperfect, came together to form the face of the county's star athlete. Lukas could see why the girls hung on his every word even if what he had to say wasn't always intelligent.

"How about every other day? That way I don't have to move around much with this block of cement on my leg, and you don't have to loose brain cells. How would that even be possible, anyway?"

"You must carry a lot of Sharpies." Lukas jumped when his partner chuckled.

"See, I knew ya weren't that mean. You're just sarcastic."

"No, I just speak the truth. Either you carry open Sharpies or you're incredibly stupid. I'm going with the second one."

"This is an argument you're not gonna win. When it comes to sports I'm the 'smartest' this school's got. I'm not gonna go easy on ya."

"I'll take anything you can throw." _Besides, when do sports equal smarts? _

"Then I'll be batting, putting, and kicking with my good leg. Just let it go, man. You suck at sports and there's nothing you can do but practise your ass off with ol' Mathias."

~meow~

"You rigged that, didn't you?"

"Actually, no. I always let Feliks pick. He's surprisingly good at choosing people who help get others' grades up. He should be a matchmaker someday."

"I can't work with him. He'll murder me. And what about math? Last I checked he wasn't a genius there, either."

"And whose fault is that? You're the one who affronted him first. I would gladly oblige to pulverising you if I were in Mathias's place. As for math, if you really do need help and aren't just slacking off, I can help." Arthur was loosening his tie, which meant that he was in no mood to deal with people. However, he seemed to be able to keep up with his bitter classmate just fine.

"He was glaring at me when I went in there, so technically..."

"Oh, leave it. You like to insult people just as much as I do and it bites you in the arse."

Lukas held the door open for him, and they were blasted with cold mid-November air. Snow blanketed the tables and the dead gardens, and Lukas wondered if it would turn into ice overnight.

"Have a good evening, Arthur. Just heat up something for dinner and don't try to ruin your taste buds any further."

"Hey, about you-know-what?"

"Now what?"

"I was wondering if you're really worth it. I mean, you're not going to use it and not going to let me have it, so why should I bother?"

Lukas froze mid-step. His responses could make or break their relationship.

_Idiot. _

"It's kind of sudden to mention that, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't say so. It's the only reason we ever talk to each other. If you say the word, I'd be gone." He put on a thick wool jacket that he'd retrieved from his backpack, slowly doing the buttons.

"That's out of character for you. I've told you plenty of times to leave me alone and you haven't. What gives?" He turned around to face him, and caught him shrugging, a half-smile on his face.

"Let's just say my everlasting patience has finally run out. You may have something I want, but there are other places to get it, you know. It's just convenient because you're always around. No epic quests or fountains of youth to search for."

"That makes me feel like you just want to use me," he said, clouds forming over his mind as thoughts bounced off grey-matter at light speed and were subsequently forced out before they could even be completed. "Maybe if you didn't treat life like a business venture all the time things would work out better for you."

Arthur chuckled and buried his hands in the jacket pockets. "I've told you that there would be a way to get rid of that curse once and for all if I could just siphon it off you, but you refuse. If I was really determined I'd put a sleep spell over you and do it then, but I'm a Kirkland. A proper young gentleman."

"Oh, sure. Like there's even something like that." He began walking back to his car, watching for ice. Dangerous shit.

"I don't know if there is, but we'll never know if you don't let me go looking. You get off scot-free and I get the best marks. It all works out. What do you say?"

"Somehow that doesn't sound all that fair. I'd want more for what I'd be giving. And stop skipping if you're going to follow me. It's just weird."

"You drive a hard bargain, don't you? I'll amend it as we go. It'll be a fluid contract that you can back out of at any time, but you can't run away from me when I brandish my wand to cast the spell."

It might not have been a good idea, but he said, "That's more like it."


End file.
